Party time

Joe | Jul 03, 2026Jul 02, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on parties are to:

• talk about parties and celebrations;
• practise vocabulary for social events;
• work on the pronunciation of /ɛ/ and /ɜː/.

In this lesson, students talk about the last party they went to, discuss different kinds of celebration (e.g. anniversary, office party, surprise party) and work with party-related vocabulary (e.g. invite guests, dress up, light candles). They read short texts about different birthday parties and share their opinions and experiences. Students also practise the pronunciation of the vowels /ɛ/ and /ɜː/ and describe photos of various social events.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This ESL lesson on parties starts with a warm-up. Students think about the last party they went to and answer questions about their experience. After that, they match sentences containing words and phrases for different celebrations and social events (e.g. birthday, wedding, anniversary). Moving on, students use the words from the previous exercise to complete the gaps in questions about celebrations. Next, they discuss the questions. Afterwards, students read short texts about three different birthday parties. They label pictures with phrases (e.g. invite guests, serve food, make a toast) from the texts. Students then say which party from the previous task they would like to go to the most and why.

PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE AND DISCUSSION

In this part of this ESL lesson on parties, students use the target vocabulary to complete the gaps in opinions and preferences related to parties. Following that, they look at the sentences from the previous exercise and replace underlined parts with their own ideas (e.g. I like to play classical music at a party). Afterwards, students categorise party-related words according to their vowel sound (/ɛ/ or /ɜː/). They then listen to a recording and check their answers. Moving on, students look at photos of celebrations and describe them using sentence beginnings (e.g. This is…) and the target vocabulary from the lesson. Finally, students choose a party (e.g. your birthday party, your friend’s wedding, a surprise party) and talk about it. They give as many details as possible.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on parties also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students read short texts and put verbs in the correct places. They then say what type of party each text describes. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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